subject: Stress and Professional Negligence Claims [print this page] Stress and Professional Negligence Claims
Professional negligence claims are not necessarily always straightforward. Therefore the claimant can find themselves under quite a lot of stress.It is likely that a legal professional negligence claim will not be agreed by both the parties. The professional will argue that they have not been negligent and the individual will be saying that they have and this is why they are making the case.This tit for tat can be stressful. Both parties obviously want to 'win' the claim, but ultimately there can only be one party who is successful. So the whole process of a professional negligence claim is one that is adversarial in its approach. If it were a mutually beneficial process then both parties would achieve something from it, whereas in reality there can only be one winner.In addition to this stress there is often stress associated with financial loss. If an accountant has been guilty of accountancy negligence, then the individual who appointed them will have experienced financial loss or there would be no professional negligence claim to answer. In addition the financial loss may have been such that it put the individual or the business represented by the individual in financial peril. So there could be a lot leaning on the result of the professional negligence claim; it could make or break the individual or the business they represent.There may also be transferred anxiety and stress. The professional who is fighting a negligence claim will probably be quite stressed and anxious, so even if the other party started off relatively calm, this stress may well be contagious and be passed from the professional onto the individual.One way of taking control of the stress and emotion is to appoint an experienced professional negligence lawyer who will deal with your case and take on the stress for you. Obviously this means that the individual has to choose their negligence solicitor with care, but it is an important fact to bear in mind. Unfortunately a professional negligence claim is not stress free and therefore it is so important to get a specialist solicitor on board!
